Daniel has perhaps never had the recognition he deserves. He has recorded with the likes of Archie Shepp, Dewey Redman, Andrew Cyrille, Sam Rivers, Billy Bang and Henry Threadgill, but has made only 3 recordings under his own name (one of these, "Tapestry" was uploaded by James on his blog Nothing Is http://ajbenjamin2beta.blogspot.com/ and I see is still available - you'll have to search the blog to find it).

Joseph Bowie, whilst perhaps not having the great talent of his older brother, Lester, nevertheless is a good partner for Daniel. Again, several recordings from the 70s, featuring Bowie, can be found on the Nothing Is blog. I understand that nowadays he is involved more in funk bands, such as Defunkt, rather than with free jazz.

I know very little about the Japanese rhythm section, other than that Nakamura went on to play with John Zorn.

Recording ripped at 320 VBR. Link in comments (click post title).

30 August 2007

heres one that was , kindly left in the comments to boromir's post of a broadcast by the same band. this is brought to us by kinablu, many thanks(hope you dont mind us posting this, it deserves greater exposure)

i havent heard a great deal of stevens in this much more jazz orientated context, the few i have heard have been wonderful.

this one is particularly good, a vinyl in stunningly good sound , of kinablus lovingly preserved vinyl.

John Stevens: FreebopAFF 101Recorded live at the South Hill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell Jazz Festival, July 3, 1982

Kinablu says” It's a hybrid of sorts which really works, imho. Particularly enjoyed the interplay of Peter King and Gordon Beck. Really a bit of a showcase for King on this date. And proves that John Stevens did a whole more than the pure improv of SME (which I find myself appreciating as much, if not more).

27 August 2007

This recording was released on the America label (which I understand never paid it's artists). It consists of just 2 tracks, the first "Uhuru (Dawn of Freedom" is the longest of the two and continues across both sides of the LP. This track has never been released on any other recording. The second, "Pitchin' Can" which is also the title of this album, has also been released on a CD Black Gipsy, but which I don't think is available.

Uhuru, particularly, is high energy stuff of the type Shepp was playing at the end of the 60s: 3 drummers, including the wonderfully named Ostaine Blue Warner, providing a back drop for Shepp' s searing tenor. There's also some nice work from Clifford Thornton, Lester Bowieand Alan Shorter.

Line-up:-

"Uhuru"

Lester Bowie (tp)

Alan Shorter (flh)

Clifford Thornton (vtb)

Archie Shepp (ts)

Bobby Few (p)

Bob Reid (b)

Muhammad Ali (d)

Djibrill (cga)

Ostaine Blue Warner (per)

----------------------------

"Pitchin Can"

Clifford Thornton (tp)

Archie Shepp (ss)

Noah Howard (as)

Julio Finn (hca)

Leroy Jenkins (vla)

Dave Burrell (p)

Earl Freeman (b)

Sunny Murray (d)

Chicago Beau (vo)--------------------

Vinyl ripped at 192 kbps. Link in comments (click title).

20 August 2007

This is a rare example of the group led by the late great drummer John Stevens, called "Freebop". It was recorded by the BBC at the Bracknell (Berks, UK) Jazz Festival July 1982 and subsequently broadcast on FM radio. This posting comes from a bit torrent upped by "6135terry", my thanks to him. Of particular interest to me about this music, is the presence of altoist Pete King, who is a beebopper, not known for his excursions into this territory. The other band members are stalwarts of the UK free jazz scene (sadly though, Paul Rutheford passed away very recently, Stevens died in 1994).

There are only 25 minutes on this broadcast, the full concert was subsequently released on vinyl on the Affinity label (AFF101), from which the above image is obtained. This record is long OOP, if anyone has it I'd love to know as I think it was the only recording of this band. Stevens of course recorded as leader of many other bands, perhaps most notably SME. Many of the SME recordings are available on the EMANEM label.

Line up:

Paul Rutherford (tb)

Trevor Watts (as)

Pete King (as)

John Etheridge (g)

Jeff Clyne (b)

John Stevens (d).

Sorry about the brevity of this post, but at least it's only a small download.

Limited Edition, 300 copies only.Sorry about the lack of info but I’m on Holiday & running out of time!!!All I can say is; if you don’t own any albums by Korean artists this is an excellent place to start!!!

I think this may have been posted before on a blog, but not for some time, so I guess some people don't have it. It was a short-lived quartet, which produced only two recordings to my knowledge, of which this is the second. The quartet, led by alto saxophonist John Tchicai, have a very distinctive sound, never reproduced by any other ensemble. The uniqueness of the sound comes from the collective interpretations of the tunes, rather from any long solos.

It is also interesting to note that all four members of the quartet are still alive and peforming (to my knowledge).

Line-up:

John Tchicai: alto sax

Roswell Rudd: trombone

Reggie Workman: bass

Milford Graves: percussion

Vinyl ripped at 256 kbps. Includes scans.

LINK WITHIN COMMENTS (click post title).

16 August 2007

Here’s a great one , from a very adventurous youthful davidmurray, this was a seasoned band, and it contains some of murrays most "out" playing ever, I have to confess im a huge fan of murrays , and this period from roughly 75- 82 produced some of the best so called “free jazz” tenor in the history of the music, this is well on par and in my view better than what people like gayle, and david s ware are now doing, somewhat different too, although theres no doubting albertaylers influence here(flowers for albert is a dedication to ayler)1960’s sonny Rollins is also a huge influence.With butch morris , fred Hopkins, and the great don pullen on board, you pretty much get the idea in advance that its going to burn red hot.A lot of free jazz snobs who are suspicious of virtuosity and prefer a noisy staccato attack , and full on multi phonic assault, view murray as a sellout, I love (very selectively his later stuff too) and if possible I recommend to their attentions the very moving tribute to don pullen on diw called ‘the long goodbye’.

The real surprise for younger people here must surely be Stanley crouches’s presence as drummer with this band, crouch is now best known as a reactionary critic who dismisses ceciltaylor as not being in the black music tradition at all, and who through his enormous power over the likes of protégés like wyntonmarsallis has spread his neo con dogma,throughout all mediums including television and film the most notorious example being his presence as eminence grise behind the scenes of ken burns series about jazz.

Crouch was once a stalwart of the loft scene, who though no where near as inventive and authoritative as milford graves , Andrew cyrille and sunny murray , or phillip Wilson(who also drummed with this group), none the less does surpassingly well.This was originally released as 2 separate albums vol1 “penthouse jazz’ and vol2 “holy siege on intrigue”This rip though was taken from the semi bootleg cd released in 1990 on the westwindlabel which is now out of print.

13 August 2007

Zappatistas is a Frank Zappa tribute band, composed of a group of British jazz musicians led by guitarist John Etheridge, who is perhaps best known for his work with Soft Machine in the 1970s. Since then, he's played with classicist violinist Nigel Kennedy, and other former Soft Machine stalwarts such as Elton Dean and John Marshall, and with Stephane Grappelli. I don't know too much about the other band members, with the exception of Annie Whitehead, who runs her own band and is considered as Britain's finest female trombone players (though I must admit I couldn't name any others).

I'm no particular fan of Frank Zappa, but I saw the Zappatistas live a couple of years ago at a local club and I thought they were tremendous. Unfortunately, they have made only one recording, which I think is no longer available. Also, their gigs are few and far between, as I expect the musicians don't want to become typecast into a tribute repetoire. I obtained this recording from a bit torrent, originating from a German FM broadcast. It was an old torrent file, only 2 seeds so it took over a week to download it, but well worth it as this is a rare example of the band's recorded work.

Considering that Zappa was thought to live much of his life under a drug-induced depression, much of his music is "jolly". There are some really good tunes in this work.

9 August 2007

heres an album i like by a quartet which was an active working unit for some years.jimmy lyons of course was a mainstay of cecil taylor's units for 25 or so years.and im sure that fans who have the ayler box ,are already familiar with the high level of creative empathy produced by this group.

heres a short ,almost curt review from amgby Scott YanowFor one of his very infrequent recordings outside of the realm of Cecil Taylor, altoist Jimmy Lyons teams up with the talented jazz bassoonist Karen Borca, bassist Jay Oliver and drummer Paul Murphy for lengthy and rather adventurous versions of "Theme" and "Riffs #1/II" plus the brief "Riffs #1/I" which serves as a prelude to the longer "Riffs." It is always intriguing to hear Lyons stretching out without a piano and this set helped make listeners aware of Borca's brilliant playing on the rarely utilized bassoon.

its hard to go wrong with jimmy lyons, unfortunately on this the recording balance is far from perfect, the sound quality is at times muddy , though its certainly better than that achieved on the mamoth 3 lp set push- pull which i regret having sold because of the poor sound quality.if anyone has that please post it either here or elsewhere.